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Gabriel Coe’s speech quickens as he explains why he embraced Bitcoin. It’s a digital currency
with no need for banks. There’s little regulation, he says. But his enthusiasm grew from a simpler
benefit: It made him a lot of money.

Coe first heard about Bitcoin about a year ago while a sophomore at Ohio State University. Think
of it as money that replaces physical coins and bills with strings of computer code. People cash in
traditional money for digital “Bitcoins” that can be sent online to anyone, anywhere, usually for a
fee of less than 40 cents.

Some, like Coe, prefer to “mine” Bitcoins: He and his friends bought a boxy piece of computer
hardware that helps process Bitcoin transactions around the world. It gathers pending exchanges and
sends them to a public online ledger book, but only if the computer can solve a complex puzzle in
the process.

Others compete to crack the code. The first one to solve it earns 25 newly minted Bitcoins,
which in U.S. dollars amounts to $13,000.

“I’ve used it to support myself this semester,” said Coe, 21, of Bexley. Although he keeps quiet
about his total earnings, it has been enough to cover rent, food, car insurance, gas, clothes and
part of his spring tuition at Ohio State.

But that isn’t why he started an OSU Bitcoin club, one of the first in the country. He turned to
Bitcoins for a quick buck, but the philosophy followed. Now, he and group co-founder Jad Mubaslat
are evangelizing to students about a decentralized “cryptocurrency,” controlled by individuals
instead of banks.

In other words: They want more students to turn in cash for Bitcoins.

“The college campus is the perfect place for this kind of technology to take off because you
already have people who are tech-savvy,” said Mubaslat, a junior in biomedical engineering and
recent founder of an online Bitcoin exchange.

Colleges have a key role in the spread of Bitcoins, said Alan Chalker, the director of
technology solutions at the Ohio Supercomputer Center.

Early users of the currency saw it as a way to rebel against a financial system that they saw as
broken, Chalker said. Now, college students are at the front of a push to bring the currency into
daily use.

Of the few Columbus businesses that take Bitcoins, one is a barbershop recently converted by
Mubaslat.

“That’s where this is really going to be explosive and grow,” said Chalker, who recently agreed
to be faculty adviser for the OSU group.

Still, Mubaslat is the only one who has used Bitcoins to pay for a haircut so far at the
Backroom Barbershop and Salon in the Short North.

One goal of the OSU group is to find new uses for Bitcoin. The founders want to pair students
who have ideas with tech experts who can help. To start, they plan to help campus bars and
restaurants accept payments in the currency.

“It’s quick and easy,” said Mubaslat, 21, of Dayton. “If you have your phone, you can use
Bitcoin to pay for whatever you want.”

Groups at a dozen other universities have formed with similar goals, joining under the College
Cryptocurrency Network. Coe, a junior in strategic communication and business finance, has been
visiting other schools to increase interest and is organizing a national college conference for
next year.

But the groups face blowback from critics who say that Bitcoin value is too volatile or that its
anonymity provides cover for illicit transactions. The FBI seized $28 million in Bitcoin from an
online drug market last year, triggering a market crash that followed other
wild swings in Bitcoin value in recent years.

The value of one Bitcoin grew from about a penny in 2010 to its peak of $1,200 by last year, but
it crashed to around $500 this year, where it is now.

As a counter to critics, the OSU group is starting a donation page that funnels Bitcoins to
cancer research. Mubaslat’s website, BitQuick, exchanges dollars and Bitcoins faster so that users
are exposed to market fluctuations only briefly.

Ohio State hasn’t taken a position on Bitcoin. “It’s something that we are keeping an eye on to
see how it develops,” spokesman Gary Lewis said.

Some schools now accept donations in digital money, such as the University of Puget Sound in
Washington, while other campuses ban mining because it can drive up electricity use. Mubaslat is
drafting a pitch to the OSU bursar’s office, urging it to start accepting tuition payments in
Bitcoins.

But government regulation now looms over a system created to avoid it. The IRS recently
announced that
Bitcoins will be taxed as property. Some see that as a blow to the currency and
those who use it. Not Chalker. Oversight will give others confidence in the system, he said, and
attract new users.

“Real long-term adoption is if people in the financial sector start using it,” he said. “I think
it’s very good this is happening.”